Last night was my mothers 1st death anniversary, she died here in the back room right off of the dining room. So, last night I did an evp session and pulled out all the stops. Had the KII, the flashlight, the tape recorder, white noise generator and I had the one laptop with the webcam going. Less than an hour after the session began, the laptop, even thought it had a full charge, died. At that exact same moment, the flashlight came on. The flashlight came on 4 more times after that for anywhere to a few seconds to as long as 1-2 minutes. The problem now is that the battery of the laptop won't hold a full charge. In fact it's lost 26% of it's charge just since I started writing this post! Has anyone ever had their batteries screwed up like this?

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer

Interests:Serious Research and separating the truth from the hype in the paranormal field today.

Posted 07 December 2011 - 08:28 PM

Another one of these "spirits drain the battery" claims. However in this case you have a battery which now won't hold a full charge. That we can work with...

1. What kind of battery? NiCad cell or Nickle metal hydride? These can develop a memory if recharged before a full discharge resulting in what you claim, short battery life. The question is you said it had a full charge at the start of the session.... Was it completely discharged BEFORE you last charged it? That is the most common way these things develop a "memory".

There is a fix for battery memory. I won't outline it here as it can be dangerous and cause a battery to explode. It would however confirm a memory problem with a battery. You might get a local tech to do the procedure, most know how but because of the possibility of causing a battery to explode and cause injury won't generally disclose the method.

BTW, I have been doing this research for about 30 years and never experienced an unaccounted for battery drain. I also monitor all battery loads while an investigation is in progress and also know the amp-hour capacity of the batteries. Thus it can be determined ahead of time how long they should hold up under a given load. If a spirit drew off extra power the time period would be shortened. However I have never experienced such an unexpected effect; Battery life has always met or exceeded projections.

I always make sure that the battery is 5% or less when I recharge it. Having had laptops since the mid 90's I am well aware that the batteries don't last forever. But most battery issues develop over time, this was instant. In the 32 years that I have on and off done EVP's I have never encountered this.

It happens to us so many times it's unreal... We are constantly either changing batteries or switching out cameras because of battery drain... Sometimes both cameras go down and we need to use our cell phone video to finish the investigations. The incredible part is when you leave the area and everything once again works fine...

I do believe that spirits use our energy and can use energy from the direct environment.
As for your battery problems, list that under "Stuff Happens" Flash lights lighting up can not be used as evidence of anything. It is wonderful when the pattern correlates with recorded evidence, but alone flash lite is not a reliable means of communication.

I've heard of it happening to a guy I know in a NJ paranormal research group, but he didn't have any documentation of it other than his story. I mean, there are too many other factors that can go into a battery draining. I mean, hell, the simplest reason could just be a bad battery.

Hmm...I know this is an older thread, but since it was brought back up, lol....

Laptops are notoriously bad for having the batteries go bad and losing the ability to hold a charge. I'm not prolific in computer technology, but my boyfriend is a computer tech, so I hear some of his "consultations" and know that some brands are better than others. I also found out the hard way that my own brand of Dell netbook was almost guaranteed to have this happen...which it did.

However, as for battery drain itself, I think we sometimes give entities a lot of credit on their abilities, based on little more than anecdotal evidence. Cold weather can make it appear that a battery is draining, and using the wrong type of battery can lead to poor results. Here's a quick article, while dated, does discuss why some batteries might drain quickly: http://www.ghoststud...s/other/105.htm

Anyway, we do have one interesting location on our ghost tours that tend to mess with people's batteries. At one interesting gravesite, we always have at least one or two people per tour have their camera or camcorder batteries go dead while visiting this grave. We've had news teams and an student documentary film maker experience battery drain at this grave, which always adds a lot of interest to our tours, lol.

Entities can and do drain electrical power sources...as well as people. Obviously there is always many other possibilities.....but to have more than one while doing an investigation seems a little peculiar to me.....maybe not absolute...but peculiar. Try the same again and see what happens.